314 REPORT— 1869. 



of towns and populous places has a great influence on the preservation of 

 health and life. Hygienic measures calculated to prevent disease have 

 therefore come to be regarded even of more importance than the knowledge 

 gained by two thousand years' experience in the art of medicine. 



Pure air and water are two of the most essential requirements of all 

 populous places. The removal of water from the surface and from the 

 subsoil by some kind of drainage has also been found essential to the healthi- 

 ness of a place ; but the thing most of all important in its influence on the 

 sanitary condition of towns &c., and as aftecting the purity of the aii' and 

 water, is undoubtedly the mode in which the excretal refuse of their 

 population is dealt with. 



Even in the most primitive states of society it has always been found 

 necessaiy to dispose of excreta and other refuse materials from dwelhngs in 

 such a manner as to prevent them from becoming a nuisance ; and the most 

 simple mode of effecting that object was probably the plan prescribed by 

 Moses to the Jews *. 



The fact that animal excreta are useful as manure has also led, in many 

 cases, to the adoption of some plan of dealing with them for that purpose, by 

 which their accumulation in the vicinity of dwelhngs would be prevented to a 

 great extent ; and in that way no great difiiculty would be experienced in 

 thinly populated places in devising simple measures sufScient to meet all re- 

 quirements. Under such circumstances the mode of effecting the object in 

 view would be a matter to be determined and carried out by the individual re- 

 sidents of a place. But wherever the population became concentrated in 

 villages or towns, difficulties arose as to the disposal of excreta or their 

 immediate removal and use as manure, in consequence of which it became a 

 practice almost universal to allow them to collect, together with other refuse, 

 in pits dug in the ground near each house or group of houses, and then at 

 intervals to remove the accumulated contents of these pits for use as manure. 

 As the magnitude of towns increased, the difiiculty of thus dealing with 

 excretal refuse became greater, and the offensive consequences of its accu- 

 mulation near dwellings more sensible. Hence this subject became more 

 and more a matter to be dealt with by the local authorities, at first by regu- 

 lation of the practices adopted by the inhabitants of a place, and eventually 

 it became a duty to be provided for and performed by the authorities them- 

 selves in such a way as to ensure the common convenience and well-being 

 of the population. 



However, the full importance of this subject in other respects was far from 

 being appreciated until within the last thirty or forty years. It is only 

 within this recent period that there has been anything like an adequate 

 recognition of the feet that the sanitary state of dwellings and towns, the 

 health and mortality of their population, the condition of rivers, and other 

 matters of importance are, as a general rule, largely influenced by the practices 

 adopted in regard to excretal refuse. Within that period inquiry and expe- 

 rience have shown that excretal refuse, besides being offensive and, in some 

 cases, a great nuisance when accumulated in a state of putrefaction or decay 

 near dwellings, may be, and often is, a source of vast injury to the pubhc 

 health. Opinions may vary as to the precise mode in which that influence 

 is exercised — whether by the evolution of deleterious gases, by the pollution 

 of water, by the development of those minute organisms which are now very 

 generally considered to be the media of infection, or in all of these ways 

 conjointly ; but there is no longer any doubt or difference of opinion as to 

 * Deuteronomy, ob. xxiii. ver. 12 et seq. 



